


everyone learns faster on fire

by cashtastrophe



Series: goddamn, we missed the vein [8]
Category: Underfell - Fandom, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Parenting, Child Abuse, Cigarettes, Daddy Issues, Daddy Kink, Exploitation, Fontcest, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masochism, Papyrus (Undertale) Needs a Hug, Poor Sans, Prostitution, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sans (Undertale) Needs a Hug, Self-Harm, Self-Mutilation, Skeleton Sex (Undertale), Underage Prostitution, Underfell Papyrus (Undertale), Underfell Sans (Undertale), Underfell W. D. Gaster, but only sort of, papyrus has a bad time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2019-10-01 03:36:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17236649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cashtastrophe/pseuds/cashtastrophe
Summary: When Papyrus is fifteen(ish), sans gets sick.sans gets *really* sick.(sad fell pap noodling because reasons?)





	1. my body is a temple--how much you think i could get for it?

**Author's Note:**

> please see end notes for warnings but also eventual spoilers

When Papyrus is fifteen(ish), sans gets sick.  
  
sans gets _really_ sick. It's the worst off Papyrus has ever seen him, actually, and that...that's saying a lot.  
  
That's glossing over broken ribs and busted teeth and gaping needle-marks gouged into the insides of his elbows. That's skipping the unsettling blank way sans will just kind of zone out sometimes, staring at empty expanses of plaster wall, grimy carpet, his own curled feet, at absolutely nothing in particular.  
  
That's ignoring the way he'll go still for truly alarming stretches of time, breathing shallow, until Papyrus snaps his fingers in front of that slack face and startles him back from wherever he retreats to, those days.  
  
It isn't—look, it's not like it's the first time, is the point. It's not even remotely close, considering how often Dad opts to skip any potential argument these days in lieu of just tossing sans out into the snow dressed in whatever castoffs he happens to be wearing at the time: no coat, no shoes and certainly no gold for a night at the Inn. He's kind of constantly flushed and sweating even before that becomes commonplace conflict management in their household, though, so Papyrus isn't entirely sure it's related.  
  
Still, it can't be good for his single brittle HP. It can't be coincidence that when Papyrus surreptitiously CHECKS him every single morning after (while he's still asleep bundled in the snow like a dog, tail curled over his nose, _ridiculous)_ he's always, _always_ lost a precious few fractions of that point.  
  
It's never enough to get close to dusting, of course. It never leaves him with much more than a cold, maybe a headache, maybe a few days where he winces at bright lights and doubles down on the pulls he sneaks from the flask “hidden” in his jacket pocket.  
  
He recovers every time, eventually, once he gets run down enough to accept Papyrus's badgering. It takes a few days but he always caves, lets his brother bundle him up in blankets and feed him something with pronounceable ingredients. He even, without too much protest, allows Papyrus to lock his cigarettes upstairs in his desk _where they belong, idiot, you can have them back once you can manage half of one without coughing up a lung._  
  
He grumbles, he complains, he whines like a fucking child, and sometimes Papyrus has to retrieve him from the upstairs bathroom where he's decided for some inexplicable reason to take up scrubbing the grout between the grimy tiles, but. He kind of lets it happen, for the most part. Lets Papyrus shove him down into the couch cushions and pin him there with a glare and the sharp command to _rest, dumbass, you're burning up._  
  
(It had scared the living shit out of Papyrus the very first time it had happened, which is maybe excusable considering he'd been about six years old and barely chest-height to sans, totally useless with his own healing magic.  
  
Mildly panicked, unsure of how else to help, he'd made cup after cup of what he now knows was truly awful tea, because he'd seen that particular ritual on more than one human documentary, so it was only logical that there had to be _some_ health benefit.  
  
sans had only smiled tiredly through his fever chills—it looked a little different than his usual forced grin somehow, softer—and croaked, “thanks, bro,” which had been startling enough that Papyrus had very nearly spilled the latest cup all over his guardian's curled-up form. sans's sockets had been closed, thankfully, face smushed into his pillow.  
  
He hadn't seen.)  
  
Papyrus is old enough to know better these days, of course, old enough to understand that no amount of tea and gentle treatment would ever cure what's wrong with sans. Not when Papyrus's father worked so diligently to dismantle any potential kindness towards the little skeleton, any remote sense of comfort or security he might have managed to cling onto.  
  
Really, sans has been a dead monster walking for a long, long time now.  
  
His stubborn brother doesn't seem to have _quite_ gotten that memo, however. His brother, with all the unconscious persistence of an invasive species, just goes right on lingering anyways, a constant ~~reassurance~~ cowering presence in the edges of Papyrus's peripherals. He even has the audacity to make terrible jokes about it half the time, these viciously unfunny things at his own expense that never fail to make something small and pathetic in Papyrus twinge in sympathy.  
  
((He _hates_ that sans insists on being his own punchline, almost as much as he hates the softsick way it makes him feel. Hates the fact, actually, that it makes him feel anything in the first place.))  
  
Of course, it's difficult for sans to make any jokes at all when he spends the better part of three days unconscious on the couch literally shivering with fever, so.  
  
Papyrus thinks his growing alarm—logical, he firmly decides on day two, logical and appropriately mild, thank you, because he's not worried for sans, but he is _responsible_ for sans—is more than justified. Thinks he's entirely within the realm of practicality when he spends those two nights curled up on the living room carpet with sans's discarded jacket bundled up under his head for a pillow, watching that huddled little form just to make sure he keeps breathing.  
  
He'd do the same for any dog, after all. He's responsible. He _will_ do the same, he's sure, when Snowdin's canine patrol inevitably falls under his command. A good soldier cares for even the weakest point in their armor, right, that's just a basic element of military strategy.  
  
So there's no actual reason at all for his cheekbones to flush bright red when he catches Gaster watching him from the kitchen doorway only a few feet away and jumps, startled. There's no _reason_ for his father's observation to make him drop his eyelights firmly down to his current point of focus, three of his own fingers—just three! hardly contact!—looped easy around sans's bare anklebones. There's no _reason_ for shame to prickle hot, angry tears into his sockets but it happens anyways, while Papyrus glares down at sans and wants desperately to drag his blanket over where a coil of tail has snaked around his wrist in return, just to stop Gaster _looking at them like that_.  
  
He doesn't deserve to, after what he—  
  
Look, point is, there is no legitimate reason to snatch his hand away, no reason to flick away the hold on his wrist so he doesn't. He can't actually snap at his father over something as trivial as the way he _watches_ them, can he, can't appear unhinged enough for a little bit of light creepy staring to rattle him, and besides—Papyrus isn't really doing anything wrong.  
  
God knows Gaster has no objection to _touching._  
  
“Take a picture, it'll last longer,” he snarls at his father instead, exactly the way he didn't want to, like he's still twelve years old and stupid as a box of fucking _rocks._ Gaster's sockets narrow only a fraction and Papyrus immediately regrets it, cursing his mouth's tendency to make its own executive decisions without consulting him first. He clears his throat and follows it with, in a far more appropriately-deferential tone, “He needs the healer.”  
  
“Does he.” Gaster's voice is flat, void-grey. He sounds a million miles away, distant like he's being patched in through a bad receiver.  
  
He sounds like he couldn't be less interested if he actively tried. He sounds like a total stranger.  
  
It's the first thing he's said directly to Papyrus in _weeks_.  
  
“Yeah,” Papyrus offers, low. “He ain't—he hasn't woken up yet. It's been three days, Dad.”  
  
(The word tastes like blood dripping down the roof of his mouth, licked off split knuckles, sucked between teeth knocked bar-fight loose in their sockets and it takes every pathetic scrap of determination-with-a-small-d that Papyrus has just to keep himself breathing slow and still, just to keep himself composed. Just to stop himself shaking as bad as sans, which makes no sense at all, because he isn't even the one who's sick.)  
  
“Well,” Gaster says, slowly, deliberately, sounding each word out as though talking to a very small child, “I suppose you had better find work then, hmm? I hear healers expect to be paid in actual gold, these days. I doubt they'll let you run up a tab the way the girls do down at the shops, no matter _how_ pitiful you might manage to look when you ask.”  
  
“ _Fuck_ you,” Papyrus snaps before he can stop himself, white-hot kick of adrenaline actually burning bright enough, the roar filling his skull fierce enough to propel him to his feet, fists clenched, teeth bared. Ready to fight, abruptly, _violently_ furious enough that he actually takes a whole entire step forward—  
  
—until he meets his father's calm eyelights and freezes up like they're headlights on a fucking highway instead, and he's the rabbit staring down an oncoming car, struck dumb, helpless to stop or sidestep the inevitable collision.  
  
He catches himself, flinches back like he always does—pitiful, _pathetic_ —and braces for a blow. He immediately tenses up, and can't make himself relax at all when his father only chuckles and turns to disappear into the kitchen.  
  
“Not even if you paid _me_ , son,” he tosses over his shoulder as he leaves, though. That's more than enough to make Papyrus's jaw snap shut all on its own, hard enough to ring in his skull for a full ten minutes after, but apparently Gaster is sufficiently ruffled by Papyrus's attitude to one-up even his own nasty commentary, an extraneous garnish to the conversation that he usually can't bother himself with.  
  
Apparently, tonight Gaster is really learning into his overachiever tendencies, though. He actually pauses for effect, the asshole, back still turned, actually lets a whole beat of silence pass simply for the sake of _dramatic_ _timing_ , and then finishes with, softly, “But that's probably a skill set of yours worth looking into, at least.”  
  
He says it so gently, almost as an afterthought. Which is just—fuck, it's gross and it's _seriously_ unnecessary and what the fuck even _is_ that and _they aren't supposed to talk about it, that's the implicit agreement upstairs, that's how it's always been, that's the only way Papyrus can live in this goddamn house and keep from losing his godamn mind, that's not a rule he can just change without warning, that's not—that's not right, that's not_ **fair** _—!_  
  
**_((—no no no stop it of course it isn't fair, of course, what did you expect, you know better, you fuckin' idiot, you should know better, when will you learn if you haven't managed it by now—? ))_**  
  
—and that last little quip before Gaster vanishes entirely makes Papyrus's chest clench, so sudden, so sharp, so very much like a knife in the ribs that he kinda chokes on it. He gasps for breath and actually grabs at his sternum with his free hand, claws ripping five brand-new little holes into the cloth in the process.

He stares down at his own empty finger bones for far too long afterwards, too, almost dimly surprised they don't come away wet with blood.


	2. i will take cold showers from now on until I learn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> professional networking but make it a nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who left feedback on this weird little thing! I love you! I have no idea what I'm doing!

  
  
Undyne...didn't agree with Papyrus's newfound career focus, to say the very least.  
  
Immediately after Undyne had finished verbally tearing apart every single poor decision Papyrus has ever made, actually,  
immediately after his best friend was done _eviscerating him in front of practical strangers_ , Bratty tried to warn him off of the entire idea. Much to her credit, as soon as Undyne vacated their near-empty classroom, stomping her way loudly towards her locker down the hall, Bratty tried _really_ _hard_ to warn him. She honestly tried to help him.  
  
Papyrus had spoken to her maybe twice in their entire acquaintance prior, useless pleasantries and precious little else, so the fact that she even bothered in the first place was...weird, to say the least.  
  
It wasn't like she owed him anything. She had no reason to put herself out for his sake. No reason to look out for him at all, which is maybe why it sticks so persistently with him even years later. Maybe that's why he can recall their conversation in upsettingly vibrant detail, despite how many of his other formative memories sort of just...settle into an uncomfortable greyish haze of background static with age.  
  
He remembers very clearly that she'd looked a little bit sick when she did it too, dropped those needle-slit pupils just shy of making eye contact, though Papyrus had barely even been looking at her himself. They'd sort of stood there awkwardly, her hands stuffed deep into the pockets of her leather jacket, his arms folded stubbornly over his chest. For several long moments they had stood, ignoring each other, neither taking so much as a step towards the still-open door Catty and Undyne had vanished through.  
  
Undyne had _not_ been pleased with Papyrus's latest solution to his challenge of fiscal responsibility, which he thought was pretty unfair—dropping out of school to enter the Guard early made sense! He had actually thought it through! He had made a rational adult decision, no matter what her opinion on the topic might have been.  
  
It was a viable option, maybe his _only_ viable option: he would leave school and sign up as a foot soldier, taking the grunt route instead of applying to the Academy. This would let him skip the educational requirement of officer training entirely, and start him earning a paycheck almost two years before he'd be able to otherwise.  
  
Yes, it would mean more years in the Guard before he ever had a chance at a rank. Yes, it meant hard work. Yes, Undyne, he actually _did_ remember the promise they'd made to each other as kids, he _did_ remember they'd sworn they'd serve the Crown together or not at all, but it didn't actually _matter_ if the alternative was letting his brother waste away on the couch.  
  
It wasn't even a crazy solution. It wasn't his dumbest suggestion by far. She hadn't been remotely swayed regardless by his very careful reasoning that school wasn't doing him much good anyways, that if they were both being honest, they both knew he wasn't built for the classroom. She hadn't been happy with his rationale that he was probably too hair-trigger for command in the first place, and that perhaps boot camp would actually be good for him in the long run.  
  
And she'd lost her fucking _mind_ when he'd dared point out that he responds really well to authority, particularly to rigid, regimented, occasionally-violent authority so maybe—  
  
She had screamed all of this at him in impressively extensive detail at the (also impressive) top of her lungs before storming out of the room. Catty had followed her, trailing starry-eyed after, apparently unfazed by the noise. Bratty, who had stayed behind, had kinda curled her shoulders up instead, making herself smaller, awful and familiar.  
  
Undyne's breath control is extraordinary, he remembers observing dimly. The sheer volume alone, from that small ribcage...Papyrus's skull is still ringing a full three minutes later, when Bratty finally speaks. It sounds sort of like she's underwater as a result, like he's hearing her through thick wads of cotton packed into the cavities where his ears belong. “Uh. What?”  
  
“Undyne's just yelling 'cause she's worried,” Bratty repeats, low and rough into the remnants of their awkward silence. She rocks back on her heels, tips forward onto her toes. Does it again. Papyrus hopes it's soothing. “She doesn't _actually_ think you're stupid.”  
  
That's...not even a point worth arguing, so he doesn't, just shifts his weight uneasily to one foot. “That's an interesting interpretation,” he says instead, smooth, bland. “Which particular part did you glean _that_ insight from? When she called me—what was it? a 'vapid, selfish edgelord cosplaying soldier?' 'Married to my own martyr complex?' Did I get that right?” He hisses that last bit through clenched teeth. Doesn't turn to look at her. “She's known me longer than anyone. She's got the most available data on the situation. She would know.”  
  
He can practically hear Bratty roll her eyes, and she huffs out an exasperated, exaggerated little breath right along with it. “Ohhhhh my god. Oh my _god_ , you _are_ a little drama queen, what are you—fourteen? fifteen? Please tell me you're at least bordering on legal.” She doesn't wait for his answer, actually, shaking her ratty blonde curls in protest the instant he opens his mouth. “Don't answer that, on second thought, I don't think I wanna know. However old you are is however old you are and—sans is still sick, right?”  
  
“Right,” Papyrus echoes, only a little hollow. “sans is still sick”  
  
**_((—five days, it's been five days and counting and Papyrus could swear sans has lost weight which shouldn't theoretically even be possible, he's pretty sure—_**  
  
**_—if sans hadn't sort of lazily cooperated when he'd had to coax water down his parched throat, tipping the glass in gentle increments so sans didn't choke, Papyrus would be full-on panicking right now wouldn't he—_**  
  
**_—though sans's HP is holding steady at half-mast, he won't wake up, what's happening to him,_ why won't he wake up _— ))_**  
  
“And Undyne, she...she's good people, man, you know she is, but she grew up in a home and everything. Had a whole functional parent. She doesn't—she's never had to— “ Bratty's voice cracks and she immediately coughs to cover it. She pulls her cigarettes from her pocket and plucks one from the carton with her teeth, ducking her head down under the pretense of lighting it. “She doesn't really get what it means, _needing_ money,” she finally settles on, once she's taken a deep drag, smoke spiraling from her nostrils and catching the cheap fluorescent light like the lead-lined breath of St. George's dragon set in stained glass. “She comes from money. Rules've always been set a little different for her, she just hasn't realized it yet.”  
  
Which is—succinct and simplistic and also sets everything in his narrow worldview at _least_ twelve degrees askew. Which jolts an unsettling, rattling feeling into his chest that he folds neatly aside for later. For when he has the energy to even begin to examine it, when he has the time—  
  
—maybe _never_ if he can manage it, if he can just un-think _yes yes YES that's it, she wants me to be **normal** she wants me to follow all these arbitrary rules, keep to all these polite little lines like they make any sense at all and I just want her to understand that I can't, if I want to survive I can't be soft like she can, I can't afford to be gentle, some monsters deserve it and she doesn't even know, she can't understand how bad it can get, she's never **seen** **anything**_ _—_  
  
Except— “I come from money,” he mumbles, scuffing one boot heel awkward against dirty tile. “My dad's the Royal Scientist,” He tacks on, like maybe she's somehow forgotten. Like maybe she's mistaken them for another skeleton family.  
  
Bratty snorts again. “Yeah, I can tell by the fact that you've been basically wearing the same outfit every time I've seen you. And that thing you do where you pull your hood up so what— are we supposed to think it's some _other_ giant kid stuffing his pockets with food in the lunchroom when he thinks no one's looking? Real spoiled, you are. Did his Royal Whatever even offer to help with the cost?”  
  
“...no,” Papyrus admits softly. He stares down at his hands like he's never seen them before, smooths his focus deep into the shadow between cracked, pitted bone where _it doesn't fucking matter that his classmates all watched him hoard food like an animal why wouldn't Undyne have said anything why wouldn't she have stopped him embarrassing himself like that, he'd take the hunger over the humiliation any day, she has to know that, she has to—_  
  
“So...fuck him, right? What good does that do you? Unless you can steal something valuable from him without getting your ass beat again— ” he takes a sharp breath and she just barrels on, pointed, louder, “—it doesn't help you any. You need work, like, _yesterday_ , and no one wants to hire a kid who's still in school, right? sans is getting sicker?”  
  
if he had a stomach, he's sure it would be in knots. He can feel his phantom pulse in the base of his skull, a heartbeat of panicked magic that prickles nervous sweat all along his bones. “Yes,” he snarls. “Yes, you know he is.”  
  
**_((— FIVE DAYS!— ))_**  
  
“So okay, you're desperate. I got you. I know a guy.” She lifts one shoulder, a creak of old leather followed by the gentle, erratic wind-chime of her jacket's hardware against her wallet chain. “But two things first : one, you don't tell Undyne that I was your hookup for this gig. _Ever_.”  
  
“Okay. Fair enough.”  
  
“Two, you—you gotta watch yourself with him, okay? The money's good, pays in cash, split tips and all under the table, so his turnover for wait staff _blows_. He's always busy, though, always happy to take on some temporary servers, 'cause the place is sketchy as shit. Guard doesn't even drink there. He turns a blind eye to a _lot_ of stuff Undyne's momma would wanna know about. Expects his staff to do the same.”  
  
Papyrus nods. “Seems reasonable. He wants his clientele to feel secure.”  
  
Bratty shrugs again. “Sure, drug dealers, hookers, whatever. But some of his clients, they, uh...they like 'em young. So when I say you gotta watch yourself— “ She trails off, swallowing hard. “You _really_ gotta watch yourself, Papyrus. Undyne would never forgive me if something happened to you.”  
  
“I'm not telling her, remember?” Papyrus says with markedly less bite than he'd have preferred . For a brief, wild second he lets himself sink into the fantasy of laughing in her face, of howling at her that _that_ particular ship had sailed years ago and gotten itself hopelessly lost at sea in the interim. Undyne hadn't even noticed then, hadn't asked, hadn't said a fucking _word_ to him afterwards about the shaky confession he'd let slip—  
  
**_(('Dad, he—he made me—with_ sans _—'_**  
  
**_—and how else_** ** _could she possibly interpret that? how could she not understand? he's run it over and over again through every possible filter trying to work it out, gone through any reason Undyne's natural protective instinct wouldn't have kicked in for_ him _, specifically—_**  
  
**_—did that mean he wasn't worth the effort, did that mean what happened to him wasn't that bad, did that mean he just needed to suck it up and soldier on like any self-respecting monster, what was she saying with her silence besides the obvious_ you deserved it and we all know it, stop whining— ))**  
  
—which was odd, considering he'd cracked badly enough to turn up shivering, soaking wet and pathetic at her window, pleading for help she didn't even know how to _begin_ to give. “I'm not telling her,” he reiterates, firmly. “Don't worry. I'll be fine.”  
  
_**((— can't fuck you up worse than your own father can it, him and his goddamn “you remind me**_ ** _so much of your mother,” like that doesn't make everything in you sick, creepy-crawling with horror—_**  
  
**_—it's really just cost-benefit analysis, isn't it, just a chance, no gurantee things will go wrong, you'd be stupid not to risk it—_**  
  
**_—worst-case scenario you need the work, right, and you've been through worse than, what..._ maybe  _sleeping with a patron? so there's no real point worrying about it, is there, no actual value in that self-indulgence because you need the gold, you need sans to be better, you need it desperately, you_ need him _— ))_**  
  
  
“What's his name?” Papyrus asks, a little too loudly just so he can hear himself over his own frantic thoughts spiraling useless around each other.  
  
“Blaise,” she says, snout wrinkling up barely enough to be noticeable, the motion possibly slight enough that she hasn't realized. “You'll know the place, it's right by your house—Grillby's? Big ol' sign outside? I think he named it after his kid, but the kid ran away to...not run a restaurant or something, I dunno exactly. The littlest one still works there, though. She's a sweetheart, smart as a whip, runs all his books but she's like, nine? and probably shouldn't be working in a bar? He's.....I mean, he's a good enough boss,” she finishes carefully. “Just remember: tell him Bratty sent you, lie about your experience, and _watch your back.”_  
  
He manages two out of the three which, upon later reflection, could honestly have been _so_ much worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhhh bad vibes all the bad vibes bad vibes forever bratty bb what is u doing


	3. once you fuck the fire, all that's left to do is burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> more navelgazing characterization porn with a side of self-mutilation 
> 
> I'm sorry so sorry i just can't stop

There is a small circular scar less than half an inch in diameter directly above Papyrus's left kneecap.  
  
It's almost unnoticeable, really, visible through the rips in his jeans only if he crosses his legs a particular way. It's innocuous. It's easy to miss. He forgets about it himself, for the most part, since he doesn't exactly make a habit of casual nudity even alone.  
  
Still, sometimes, he swears he can feel every rasp of worn denim against it, a pointed grate of agony, like he's dragging coarse-grit sandpaper over a new wound. Sometimes, when his body abruptly forces him to take notice like that, without bothering to consult him on the matter, he loathes the fucking thing with every. single. fiber. of his being.  
  
Technically speaking, it's actually a collection of scars: a mishmash of rings overlapping on top of each other like condensation-marks on an old wooden bartop. They're slotted over each other so repeatedly, hatched and crosshatched over and over again, that they're impossible to count, impossible to age— though there's a particularly shaky one along the outer rim that's gone the soft grey-purple of new scarring on his bones that marks the latest, he thinks. Maybe. Probably. He should start writing this down.  
  
—no, no, scratch that, check it and shut that line of thought _right the fuck down,_ he absolutely _does not_ need to commit any of this to paper. Doesn't need to remember because it doesn't matter, doesn't make it any less crazy if he has a fucking _field journal_ on his own behavioral malfunctions. Besides, he's pretty sure there's not a lot his brother would be more disturbed by than stumbling across a neat log of, say, _every single time Papyrus has put cigarettes out on himself to top off a shitty day._  
  
(—there's a pun in there _somewhere_ If he were only quick enough to put it together, something about _the cherry on top_ and the cherry currently burning it's way merrily towards his claws, except he's not clever enough to actually do anything with that besides sort of stare at it and jokes don't actually make this any better anyways, probably wouldn't even make sans laugh in this context so what would be the _point_ — )  
  
It's the same color sans's scars turn maybe eight, nine weeks in or so, though it can't have been more than a month since he's last done this. When he'd first noticed that particular difference, actually, Papyrus had spent three days straight trying to puzzle out why it might be, why he seems to heal faster despite all his best efforts. Probably something to do with his health relative to sans's, he eventually decides, must be due at least in part to superior nutrition, better sleep, better quality of life overall...until he realizes he's absently been collecting data for a study that doesn't even exist.  
  
He's far too stupid to extrapolate a real working theory from the observation anyways, so what would he even do with the information? No point worrying it to death. No point thinking about it.  
  
When he thinks of the scar at all—which isn't often, thank you, he's _busy—_ he likes to consider it the sole indulgence he allows himself. Likes to think of his weakness as a tiny thing, measurable, quantifiable, confined to that single little shameful spot on his left femur.  
  
It barely registers in the war zone that comprises the rest of him anyways, he reminds himself, hidden as it is by the worn fabric of his jeans when he stands— which is the whole point of the placement, really. He'd been calculated in making that decision. He'd been _careful_.  
  
He'd been strategic about keeping it concealed, nearly to the point of obsession, because Papyrus isn't _like that_ , he isn't—it isn't for _attention_.  
  
He isn't that melodramatic. The mere thought of anyone knowing sends a hot prickle of shame down his spine, an acid kind of coiling in his nonexistent belly that lingers with him for hours afterwards. Makes it almost impossible to eat, turns every bite to dust in his mouth no matter how intense that day's training regime had been, no matter how loudly his exhausted body might cry for fuel.  
  
Papyrus is better than that. He has better control than that.  
  
The thought of _sans_ knowing—  
  
He cuts it off there for the most part, because he can't technically breathe past...whatever that knife-stab clench in his chest is. He can't bring himself to even imagine the way sans's cruelly permanent smile would twitch at the edges, the way his tired eye sockets would go dim with horror.  
  
With _disappointment_.  
  
So Papyrus just...doesn't think about it, best he can manage. And when it pushes at the edges of his thoughts anyways, persistent, creeping, every single one of his myriad sins crawling up his back and dragging their cold, wet, horrible tendrils along the cracks in each vertebra—well.  
  
That's what the stolen cigarettes hidden in the false bottom of his desk drawer are for. That's the entire point of the scar in the first place.  
  
That tiny self-indulgence keeps the world at bay, empties his skull of every single thing in the whole of the Underground except for the bright agony that jolts all down his leg, hip to ankle. He thinks of _nothing_ when he crushes out another glowing cherry against his femur, pressing deep into the crater its fallen comrades had left behind. It makes the snarled creature that lives in his chest ease its tension just a little, loosen into something fluid and almost calm. It tugs horrible and hot at his pelvis too—which he categorically ignores best he can manage.  
  
He's not proud of much, but he's secretly, sickly pleased by how quickly the animal panic of _**pain!**_ and _**burning!**_ and  ** _stop it! that hurts! stop it—don't—_** _ **please**_ **— _!_** melts away into the back of his consciousness as he grits his teeth and digs the cigarette in, killing the heat entirely against his leg. He's _proud_ of the little noise he makes in the back of his conjured throat, a tiny aborted sibling of the scream he'd let slip the very first time he'd done this.  
  
That's good. That's real, measurable progress.  
  
He'd cried the first time, after all. He'd clapped one hand over his mouth to silence himsef, dropped the cigarette to the carpet and clutched his leg so hard with the other hand that he'd bruised the bone around the mark, like maybe he could rub the nasty thing off if only he tried hard enough.  
  
He'd actually whimpered as he'd cleaned it in their tiny bathroom sink, whined low in his throat like a dog when he'd pressed a cold washcloth to the furious blister even though there'd been no real point to it, no one around to hear. It had hurt then—it had hurt so badly he'd barely been able to sleep for the throbbing pain. He couldn't find a comfortable position for anything, so he'd just curled up small as he could manage in the center of his mattress, knuckles stuffed between his teeth to keep himself from waking sans (who'd been snoring gently at the foot of his bed, blissfully oblivious, possibly drunk) and _sobbed_.  
  
It...doesn't really hurt anymore.  
  
The calm that accompanies the burns also doesn't last nearly as long these days though, which is turning out to be a _real_ bitch of a trade-off from a practical standpoint.  
  
That first time, when he'd push a curious claw into the oozing-red heart of the wound days after, he found that the bright echo sting was actually sufficient to rip him from even the worst of the dull nothing moods. The pain—only when it belonged to him, only when he controlled it, only when he _created_ it—burned off the grey haze almost entirely, better than any pill he'd managed to purloin from the lab storeroom. It had him stumbling around buzzing awake, practically giddy, a loose contentment in his shoulders that he didn't think he'd ever experienced before in his life.  
  
And that discovery had kept him high almost, practically floating, for _weeks_ afterwards. He'd been thrilled, he'd been _relieved,_ and he'd been strange enough that eventually, it made sans squint at him suspiciously over the dinner table. Eventually, it made him ask, hesitant, “you're a-awful chatty tonight—d-did you, uh, did you take something, Pap...?”  
  
Which Papyrus doesn't bother to answer, because it's not like sans ever bothered sharing that little stash he keeps in his coat pocket anyways, so why should Papyrus have to give up _his_ secret coping mechanism?  
  
sans had plenty of opportunity to learn to like the pain, anyways. Plenty of chances to lean into it—to _train himself through it—_ just like Papyrus had. It wasn't anyone's fault but his own that he'd chosen to crumble instead.  
  
Papyrus had accepted the eventuality of his father's temper, and he'd adapted as a result. sans, though he is supposed to be the mature one, supposed to be older and wiser and _not_ cripplingly naive, carries this useless hope that if only he's good enough, if only he tries hard enough, something might change. Like he has the power to affect anything about the force of nature that is W.D. Gaster and that megalomaniacal ego.  
  
Like he's doing himself any favors, the way he runs himself ragged trying to please a monster that had abandoned the concept long before either of them had even existed.  
  
Papyrus knows better. Papyrus was born into this, after all, and he'd hit the ground _sprinting_ for lack of any other option. He has no illusions by this point that his father has any interest in changing his stripes. He has no stupid ideas that he'll ever learn the complicated pattern-dance of the elder monster's temper. He will never be able to win by playing with the same set of rules that sans so desperately clings to, because Gaster just changes the game every time they get comfortable enough to breathe properly anyways, so.  
  
That's the only real constant in the puzzle, the only common thread he's ever been able to follow, his entire life long: Gaster wants to hurt them.  
  
Gaster _is going_ _to hurt them._  
  
And Papyrus, he deals in end results. He learns to square his shoulders and tip his skull back, challenging, even when Gaster's left him with another nasty black eye and no time for it to fade even a little bit before school. Learns that when he does this, he is asked _who_ he'd fought, rather than who had done it _to_ him.  
  
There is admiration where there once was pity, wide-eyed curiosity where his classmates once hadn't even been able to look at him properly. That liminal space, that tiny distinction becomes the place where he lives and breathes and teaches himself to shut down anything that makes him lock up with terror the way his brother does. Anything that might leave him stranded, frozen, helpless prey for the thing that lurks inside in the bedroom down the hall.  
  
So...it's a crude method but it works, for the most part. That is, it works up until he realizes that he hadn't actually considered the side effects of prolonged exposure, which turns out to be really, really stupid, because that's...just the basis of how addiction functions. That's what this is, no mistake, and that's how it _works_. Logically, he should have known that.  
  
Of _course_ the initial dose doesn't hit anymore. Of _course_ he needs more and more and more to achieve the same end result.  
  
Now, just seconds later, he immediately has to light the cigarette again and take a long, shaky drag. The warmth in his pelvis that he _definitely a hundred percent isn't thinking about_ gives another unwelcome pulse as the cherry catches, flaring bright orange in the dim light of his bedroom.  
  
He doesn't really smoke outside of this one humiliating ritual, so he nearly chokes on the unfamiliar lungful as a result, holding his breath instead until the urge to cough has passed. He lets the smoke spiral lazily between half-parted teeth as the nicotine buzz hits him sledgehammer-quick to the skull, whites out his vision for a heartbeat, settles his jittering hands. He blinks the starbursts from his sockets, watching the curls blossom apart against the water-stained ceiling and doesn't actively think about the tangerine glow emanating from the waistband of his jeans, either. Doesn't ask himself what it means, because he's already sure he wouldn't like the answer.  
  
He _does_ grind the heel of his free hand against himself briefly—though it's more because he's distantly curious what, if anything, he's managed to rewire in his own brain than it is out of any true interest in how it feels. It's more that he wants to know if he can coax the cigarette burns into something genuinely pleasurable because if he can do that he can survive anything, he can _thrive_ through anything if he can just _make himself_ —  
  
He catches himself before he does more than push up lazy into his own hand a couple of times though, rutting his clit none-too-gently against the seam of his jeans, pinned tight against his palm. It feels—it feels very nearly good, it feels _weird_ , and it also feels like it's happening to someone else entirely.  
  
It strikes him suddenly that—shit, it's been two months since he last jacked off, at least. He hadn't even...should he be worried he hadn't actually noticed that absence until now? He's a teenager, he's young, he's growing and hormonal so is that— that doesn't seem normal, does it, that seems like something might actually be legitimately wrong with him, might be—  
  
**_((Stop that_.))**  
  
He doesn't have time for this, he absolutely does not have the bandwidth to have a crisis about his goddamn _cunt_ right now, he can't—  
  
—he can't actually tell if he comes the instant he presses the cigarette back into his leg or not. Possibly, he's just so used to being exhaustedly numb that even this snarl of sensation feels like a fucking orgasm simply by virtue of ripping its way through him, so bright, so loud, so _much_.  
  
He gasps, groans out this humiliating, wrecked little noise to chase it down with like he can't tell the difference either way. It doesn't matter. His clit's still kind of throbbing in time with his jackhammering soul, his cheeks are burning bright enough to light the whole room, he can't quite breathe, _he can't breathe,_ so he narrows his entire focus down to nothing but the bright guiding light of **_pain!_** still firing all through him and he forces air steady into whatever functions as his lungs and.  
  
It.  
  
Does.  
  
Not.  
  
_Matter_.  
  
This particular self-destructive impulse—though he has no way of knowing it at the time—is precisely how he winds up making the stupidest, most humiliating mistake of his life. Which is sort of impressive, considering the sheer volume of stupid, humiliating mistakes he's managed to cram into a relatively short span of years.  
  
But hell, he's been primed for it. Prepared for it. He did it to himself. Opened the door. Hung out a neon goddamn welcome sign and everything, complete with operating hours and _please enquire within_ and he might as well have dropped to his damn knees before the interview even started, because he knew _exactly_ what he was getting into.  
  
He'd been warned. He'd kicked the metaphorical doorstop into the metaphorical doorjamb all on his own, propped the fucking thing wide open just to make the whole process easier and Blaise, well.  
  
He just walked right on through. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Papyrus isn't doing well, bad choices made with cigarettes, self-harm, self-destructive tendencies, Pap attempting to Pavolov himself into masochism, kind of masturbation??


	4. when my mind is uncertain, my body decides

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Pap gets a job for all the wrong reasons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> man, thanks to everyone who’s left feedback on this weird shit, I have no idea what I’m doing but I love you all

The thing is—the thing is, Papyrus has braced himself for the worst-case scenario, far as the job is concerned. He's expecting Gaster 2.0, if he's being wholly honest. He's expecting Blaise to be _awful_.

  
He has no other real experience with adult monsters, to be totally fair, and if Gaster can pass as a functional, contributing member of society—  
  
He's not holding his metaphorical breath, exactly, hoping Blaise will be any different.  
  
But that's okay. That's fine. Papyrus isn't good with Gaster, but he's good at keeping a low profile. He's good at doing what needs to be done quietly, in the background, without garnering any kind of notice. He can fly under Blaise's radar, surely, for the few hours per shift a busy bar might demand.  
  
Bratty's advice had been nearly as distressing as it was useful on that front. Though he tries to be grateful he'll at least be going into this with some background knowledge— tactical advantage, or as close to one as he's going to get— it's almost impossible to stop looping _they like 'em young_ on repeat in the back of his mind. Impossible to stop imagining the implications of what that means for his future workplace, that Bratty felt the need to make sure he was warned off beforehand. Wonders what she meant, _exactly_ , by watching his back. Wonders what might happen to him if he lands this job.  
  
He wonders what happened to her.  
  
He doesn't have time to wonder this for very long, though, because on day six of his convalescence, the very afternoon of Papyrus's interview, sans briefly rouses from his fever dreams just long enough to sit up and vomit pink sludge all over the carpet next to the couch.  
  
It's pure magic, potent enough that it actually scorches a circle into the rug, since he hasn't actually eaten anything in nearly a week. sans blinks down at the mess, bleary and confused, as it bubbles all the way down to the cement beneath with a faint acid _hsssssssss._  
  
“does that count as a superpower?” he mumbles, and flops bodily back onto the couch again. The springs creak in loud protest at the sudden movement. “oh, fuck you too,” sans growls back at them.  
  
Papyrus only sighs, grabs a roll of paper towels from the kitchen counter, and mops up what melted carpet he can manage. He tries to focus on the fact that it's _probably_ a positive sign that sans is even coherent enough to attempt bad jokes in the first place.  
  
“I'm going out for a little bit,” he says to the lump of blanket that is his brother, once he's disposed of the mess in the trash can and washed his hands. “Can I get you anything before I go?”  
  
“the sweet release of death,” sans mumbles without even bothering to move. At least he's still awake, after all the exertion of destroying their living room carpet. “barring that, a beer would be awesome.”  
  
“Absolutely not,” Papyrus says. He doesn't smack the back of his brother's idiot skull the way he normally would at the suggestion, because he is capable of self-control in the presence of an incapacitated monster, thank you. “If you're still awake when I get home, I'll make you some tea with whiskey. A _little_ whiskey,” he clarifies when the top of sans's skull actually emerges hopefully from his blanket cocoon, interest clearly piqued. “Like, an _acceptably-medicinal_ amount of whiskey. Just to help you sleep.”  
  
sans groans, drawn-out and exaggerated. He vanishes back into his nest of sweaty cotton. “you're the woooooorst.”  
  
“I know,” Papyrus says, patting the blanket where his brother's shoulder should be, smiling down at him. sans has got his head burrowed half under a cushion anyways—it's not like he can see. “You'll never let me forget it.”  
  
sans's laugh is weak, dry, somewhat less enthusiastic than Papyrus actually would have liked, but it's the first kind-of conversation they've had since he initially got sick, so. That's got to be a good thing, right? Meant he was getting better, maybe, meant he was fighting through whatever had knocked him on his ass this time all on his own, Gaster's cruel lack of intervention be damned.  
  
Papyrus is almost a little bit proud of him, maybe.  
  
“mmmkay, talk time's over. go outside and play, Pap. the adults are napping now.” sans-the-blanket-mound says, ruining the moment entirely. He shifts into the cushions a little bit more, curling up tighter against the ever-present chill of the house's lower level. One small, cracked hand emerges to point an accusing forefinger in his general direction. “but i'll hold you to the whiskey thing, see if i don't.”  
  
Papyrus huffs out a laugh. “I'm sure you will. Assuming you can stay awake long enough.”  
  
“asshole.”  
  
“Dick.”  
  
“be safe,” sans mutters, just like he always does when Papyrus is about to leave unaccompanied. It sounds like he's out again almost immediately, breath easing into that faint, wheezing smoker's snore. Papyrus never gets a chance to answer, which is for the best, really.  
  
It's not something he can promise, anyways.  


* * *

  
He's relieved to find out that Bratty was being a tiny bit facetious about the whole thing.  
  
Fuku is small, probably shorter than sans if he ever bothered to stand up properly. She's downright delicate, a nimble little thing hopping cat-footed down from her seat on the bartop the instant Papyrus closes the door behind him. She's so petite and doll-like she barely seems real, but at least she isn't _nine._  
  
“I'm eleven,” she snaps when he asks out of pure, stupid, startled reflex. Her narrow chest puffs up beneath her name tag like it's an argument she's had too many times before, like she knows the script already, and it's—christ, it's downright adorable. He laughs, before he remembers not to. Immediately catches himself, clears his throat. Shoves his hands deep, deep into his pockets when she caps it off with “I'm eleven, and I'm also _maybe_ about to be your manager, so.”  
  
“Of course you are,” he says, gruff, eyelights dropping down to the newly-polished toes of his boots. “I'm sorry. My name is Papyrus. I'm supposed to have an interview at three...?”  
  
She tilts her head, white-hot eyes narrowing. “I know,” she announces. “Bratty called and told me you were coming in. You have an interview at three with _me._ ” She turns and stalks determinedly into the dining area proper, with a sharp gesture over one shoulder for him to follow. It looks strange on her, too demanding and adult, like she might have borrowed it from a CEO on TV. He allows himself one last tiny smile, since her back is turned to him anyways. “Have you ever served anywhere before?”  
  
She takes three full steps to every single one of his. Her little pigtails bounce with each footfall, trailing glittering lime-green tongues of flame a few inches behind her, which dissipate into actual sparkles of spent magic once they've left the radius of her body.  
  
It's a striking effect, to say the least. Coupled with her neat little school uniform and the _tiptap_ of beetle-black oxfords, she looks like a goddamn magical girl straight out of the world's most surreal experimental anime.  
  
It's _precious_.  
  
“Uh,” he says brightly, focus snagged for a moment on making sure he doesn't outpace her. “Yeah, I, um—there was this little breakfast place in Hotland— “  
  
_Lie_ , Bratty had advised, _like your goddamn life depends on it, cause if you really need this money, it kind of does? Tell them you worked somewhere small, family-owned. It was your first serving job, and you loved it, but they ran the place into the ground. Closed after six months, okay, through no fault of your own, and if they need a reference, here_ —she had pressed a scrap of paper into his hand, folding his slack fingers around it— _that's BP's number, got it? He'll know what to tell them. You just say he was your manager or something, you're not an idiot, you'll pick it up fast, you'll be_ fine _—_  
  
“Great,” Fuku says, and asks nothing further, which a little disappointing, somehow. “So we can train you on the POS system pretty much immediately—long as you can read, it's basically impossible to fuck it up.” She slides into a booth nestled just behind the bar, smoothing her skirt down primly over her thighs as she does and nodding at the adjacent bench for Papyrus to take a seat. He obeys. She tilts her head again. “You _can_ read, can't you?”  
  
“Yes,” Papyrus says, as neutrally as he can manage, though something hot and furious flares in his soul at the implication, that stupid leftover childish pride of his shrieking _do I honestly look that stupid?_ He schools his expression into something neutral and blank. “Yes, I can read. I'm applying for the Academy soon, actually, so...” he shrugs.  
  
Technically speaking, it's not a lie. 'Soon' is a relative term, and there's no reason at all for her to know he's got two years easily before he so much as qualifies.  
  
She doesn't have eyebrows, exactly, so he can't tell what it is about her face that shifts in surprise, something bright and puzzled around the eye region. It's only there for an instant, half a second, before her eyes narrow again, this time in suspicion.  
  
Shit.  
  
“Are you?” is all she asks though, mildly. Her tone is pleasant, almost sweet.  
  
Papyrus's soul feels like it might be crawling up into the back of his throat, into his mouth, slipsliding wet and chilling against his soft palate. He shivers. “Yes ma'am. Soon as I have the marks to qualify for admission.”  
  
She hums, her little face unreadable. “That's a first. Most of our staff don't exactly have many career prospects to look forward to.”  
  
He shrugs, hoping, _praying_ it looks half as casual as he'd practiced in the mirror last night, and plays his final, desperate card. “Well, we don't all have rich daddies to pay our tuition, so! What're you gonna do, right?” He laughs, loud and bright and entirely false, like he's laughing _with_ her, instead of _at_ her. He makes a pleased mental note of the exact shade of puce her embarassed flush produces, the way her knuckles go the bright spring-green of new grass where her fingers fist around the thick cotton of her—undoubtedly very expensive—private school uniform.  
  
“That's fair,” offers a voice from somewhere at his six, somewhere _way_ the hell too close, a low, rumbling, hearty thing just behind his right ear canal that actually makes him jump, it crackles so loud inside his skull, “except you're kind of here to ask _her_ rich daddy to pay for _your_ tuition, ain'tcha, so......?”  
  
Papyrus panics way before the actual words register, of course. Papyrus reacts before his brain can do much more than set off the blaring proximity alarms and immediately he twists himself around to face the newcomer, slamming his spine into the heavy tabletop for his trouble.  
  
Bratty, apparently, had neglected to mention that Blaise is a big monster. Correction—Blaise is a _fucking_ _huge_ monster especially considering how tiny his daughter is. Papyrus can tell from here that even standing on tiptoe, he'd barely come up to the guy's collarbone, and that size clearly isn't just for show, since he's got a keg (!) tucked under one arm like it's nothing, like he barely feels the weight at all. He shifts it easily onto his hip as he leans across the table to ruffle the tongues of flame that make up Fuku's hair, his own emerald-green fingers temporarily lost to the bright flickering of her magic.  
  
“Daaaad,” Fuku scolds, ducking away, though her eyes are scrunching up like she might be trying not to smile, “I thought we'd talked about jokes like that! He's applying for a position, not asking for a _handout_ , and I really have to ask you to keep that kind of rhetoric away from the staff, that is _not_ the kind of gross capitalist workplace mindset I want to foster— “  
  
“Okay, okay,” he laughs, lifting his free hand, palm turned out in defeat. He's wearing way too much chunky silver jewelry for a monster his age, complete with a pinky ring, which Papyrus usually loathes with an almost unreasonable passion. This particular ring, though, is a coiled band of silver around a chip of shiny red gemstone and it's oddly pretty, even on that busted knuckle, which looks like it's been broken more than once and set wrong. “Speaking of, comrade— “ and here Blaise nods at Papyrus, not unkindly, “—is this our new blood?”  
  
((Papyrus likes it _more_ on the mangled finger, maybe. He tries not to examine that too deeply. ))  
  
“Papyrus, sir,” he says, and holds a hand out to shake, like he doesn't still have his spine pressed back into the table's edge, like he's not still cringing away from the unexpected proximity of an unfamiliar monster. He tries to smile.  
  
To his surprise Blaise doesn't hesistate. He just smiles back, wide, a jagged, flickering thing that spreads honey-drip slow across his face as he closes Papyrus's scuffed fingerbones in one big, warm hand. “Pleased to meet you, Papyrus,” he rumbles, eyes crinkling, sounding almost like he means it. “And you'll have to pardon me if this is too forward, but—what's your clothing size, and when can you start? We've got some clean uniforms in the back you could _probably_ fit into, but they might be a little short.”  
  
In retrospect, that's probably the moment Papyrus should have known that he was well and truly fucked. That's probably the moment Papyrus should have suspected _something_ was off about the elder monster, because no one has ever been genuinely pleased to meet him before. No one has ever been that eager to be around him, except maybe Undyne, on a particularly good day. No one has ever worried if his clothes _fit_ before, even, and he abruptly has to clear his throat of the strange, painful lump that's taken up residence there. Has to blink back an alarming wetness that prickles at the underside of his sockets, because there's not much he can think of that would be more humiliating that starting to cry in a job interview out of sheer, overwhelming relief.  
  
“I don't mind,” he says softly once his voice is cooperating again, and it's only much, much later—years later, in fact—that it will strike him what a truly consistent theme _that_ has become.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


* * *

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...surprisingly, not a lot?


	5. never underestimate poor, hungry and desperate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Undyne figures some Things out
> 
> (This might require some context from chapter 30 of little blue pills for total understanding)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> part 1/2 of a big ol’ segment, 2/2 will hopefully be up tonight, with tomorrow morning as the latest
> 
> bless y’all bless ur feedback

As an adult looking back, Papyrus doesn't think too much about it. Really, honestly, he knows exactly how that sounds, but he _doesn't_.

 

Okay, sure, so...maybe his sordid affair with a monster twice his age was a deeply humiliating handful of months in retrospect.So maybe it's not exactly the sort of dumb teenage misstep that makes for fun idle storytelling at parties. It's certainly nothing he'll ever breathe a word of to another living being if he can help it, the shame burns so bright and persistent still. And the memories themselves—or at least the fragments he's left with— are all so strange, so flashbulb-fractured that he can't ever piece them into one coherent narrative anyways. It's honestly far simpler to just....not.

 

It doesn't matter. Because sans recovered, right, and that was the only bit that he ever really cared about in the first place.

 

Besides, Papyrus reminds himself firmly, sharply, whenever the topic creeps like an invasive vine into his thoughts, what is there to really analyze about it? He was young and dumb and Blaise was a little gross, maybe, considering he'd only been a few years older than the guy's daughter at the time but it's not like—

 

Papyrus has _seen_ victims, okay, he's been in the Guard long enough to have busted down his fair share of sketchy New Home apartment doors. He's been in enough rooms filled with hollow-eyed young monsters packed elbow-to-elbow, eerily reminiscent of the cattle he's seen in pictures of Aboveground slaughterhouses. He's seen enough of the wretched little things flinching back from even Undyne's gentlest touch like they've never learned to expect anything good at all from the proximity of an adult.

 

He has no right counting himself among their ranks. He _knows_ that.

 

He had offered. He had approached Blaise, not the other way around. He'd made the choice, ultimately, and that simple fact becomes such a foundation for the haphazard scaffolding of logic he builds for himself, he just...kind of forgets to examine it for years afterwards.

 

((Alright, so technically he tries desperately to forget the thing entirely for years afterwards. He tries not to think about what the Guard had uncovered in those tiny rooms above the bar, just down the hall from Blaise's own familiar quarters. He tries to forget how lucky he was in comparison to those other kids, how much worse it could have been for him, how much worse was actively happening on the other side of a thin plaster wall while he dozed on Blaise's chest, flushed and half-drunk and delusional enough to think he was _happy_ when the reality was he was just too stupid to _know any better—_

 

He had also, no matter how Captain Melusine had pleaded with him, outright refused to press charges.

 

“Blaise is dead,” she’d told him, yellow eyes tired and ringed in bruise-colored circles, her blood-bright hair sticking up at strange angles where she’d tugged at it in frustration,“but he had dozens of monsters registered for that site, and if we're quick about it, we can at least still bring them in for questioning— “

 

“Dozens?” Papyrus had managed to choke out—and even that, only barely—before his jaw locked right up because—

—if that many knew about _him_ , how many knew about the bar itself, how many of the grown monsters around him every single day knew full well about the kids locked in the tiny rooms upstairs and did _nothing_ , said _nothing_ to _**anyone**_ —

 

**((—don’t be stupid, you didn't ask for this, you didn't ask for _any_ of this, you never wanted anything at all except for someone to look at you and tell you what happened to you was wrong—**

**—and anyways Gaster will kill you if he finds out what you've been doing, he'll kill you and no one will ever find your dust, why doesn't she _get_ that— ))**

 

“That's not my problem,” he'd whispered eventually, low, eyelights trained on his own hands clenched tight and trembling in his lap. “They're...not my problem. None of this is anymore, unless you're gonna hold me here for what I did to Blaise.”

 

“You know I won't,” she’d said. She'd sounded a little hurt. She had also satthere and just kinda stared at him for longer than was strictly comfortable, but true to her word she had eventually let him go.

 

They'd never spoken again to each other on the topic. He forgets about it, for his own given value of forgetting, and Melusine takes up drinking like a fish— _hah_ —so quietly that no one even notices. Or they don't notice right up until she scrawls her daughter a goodbye note and marches straight into one of Hotland's nastier laser defenses, anyways, without even pausing to second-guess her choice.

 

((He knows she didn't stop. He's watched the security feed of it enough times, hasn't he, countless cigarettes burning down to their filters, pinched useless between numb fingers long before he remembers to push them into his femur. He thinks he could probably recreate the clip from memory, frame-by-frame if he had to, all thirty-three seconds of her burning alivein crackling greyscale. He sees it playing on his ceiling, sometimes, when he can't sleep.

 

He knows that...isn't great, strictly speaking. He knows that probably shouldn't be happening.

 

He knows, also, that she didn't say a single word in her note about _why_. She'd just left her daughter something vague and poetic and pointless, some sweet down-home aphorism about how there was _only so much a body could take,_ and hers had simply reached its limit.

 

She spent the bulk of the note apologizing to Undyne, which was exactly as it should be. He knows that, too. 

 

Melusine doesn't exactly need to call him out by name for him to know damn well that it's his fault.))

 

And the awful thing is, for the most part, this avoidance _works_. That embarrassing chunk of his life doesn't really bother him on a day-to-day basis, the way it must have bothered Melusine. It doesn't touch him anymore. It exists only in a tiny steel box tucked away in the back of his mind, neatly compartmentalized and wrapped in bright warning ribbons of caution tape.

 

Which is why he missed it, maybe, that enormous blind spot he'd made for himself. He avoided the topic so thoroughly that he hadn't even considered what it meant for _him_ when Undyne had finally been promoted to her mother's former position within the Guard at the (admittedly impressive!!) age of twenty-five.

 

He'd been fiercerly proud of her, of course—she was still his best friend in the world, the only thing he can definitively say he's loved in his entire life—but he'd also been trying so hard for so long to delete the mental contents of those confidential files, to un-see the seemingly endless photographs of his own sweat-streaked bone, the shaky video stills, the goddamn _screenshots_ —

 

Well, he'd been so focused on the forgetting that he hadn't really prepared himself for this part. He hadn't considered at all what he would say when Undyne inevitably came across his confidential file, hadn't formulated any real plan of action for her, say,pounding on his bedroom door at two am with a handful of incredibly damning evidence, tears streaming freely down her face.

 

“You _asshole_ ,” she seethes, a venom in her voice he's never heard directed at him before. He only technically flinches a little, just enough to let her shoulder past him through the doorway. She doesn't thank him, doesn't say a fucking word about the way he shrinks back from her,just flares her fins at him in lieu of any sort of apology. It's an aggressive display, one he's always found a tiny bit unnerving, and the sheer amount of jagged teeth she's baring at him don't help much. on that front. He's willing to bet she knows that. “I can't fucking _believe_ you, I can't believe I had to learn this from Mom's old paperwork, why—we're supposed to be best friends, why the hell wouldn't you _tell me—_ “

 

“... sorry, what are we yelling at me about right now?” Papyrus asks, brain still dumb and muzzy with sleep and the leftover dregs of panic at being jolted awake so abruptly. He blinks at her, owlishin the sudden light when she rounds on the nearby switch and slams it on with the heel of her hand as though it, too, has gravely offended her.

 

That fog only lasts about as long as it takes his eyelights to focus properly on the file clenched in Undyne's fist.

 

He swalllows once, hard.

 

“Oh,” is all he manages through the sudden sucking cold that fills his ribcage like he's just been dropped in the deep part of a river. Abruptly, immediately, he feels sick with shame just reading his own name printed in Melusine's neat all-caps script on the top corner of the file.

 

“Yeah, _oh_.” She brandishes the pages at him like a weapon, her good eye wild and wounded. “You—shit, Pap, I thought you were maybe serving liquor underage at that dive, not that you were— “ She gestures at him with the file again, this time helplessly.

 

“Not that I was...?” he asks her softly, because he genuinely wants to know,because he'snever been able to figure out for himself quite what to call it. Because he's never actually known _what_ he was, long before Blaise had even entered the picture.

 

“Not that you were _fourteen_ ,” she says and she says it almost like she might cry again, genuine sad crying this time instead of her rage tears, the way she never seems to crack anymore. She sounds kind of like she's choking on it, too, which....can't be right, actually, since Papyrus is the one who normally can't breathe properly, not her. “Not that you got—got _taken advantage of_ by some _dickwad_ that had the balls to call himself your boss and act like he was doing you a _favor_ — “

 

“He was— “

 

“Oh, don't you dare!” she snaps. “Don't you _dare_ defend him, Papyrus, don't you act like he wasn't old enough to know exactly what the fuck he was doing—“

 

“We were just—”

 

“ _ **NO**_ ,” Undyne roars at him, full-throated, top-of-her-lungs, yes-ma'am-level bellowing volume, and puts her foot down hard enough to actually split the floorboard where her bare heel lands. She hisses in a couple ragged (possibly pained) attempts at calming breaths and then, in an admittedly softer shout, “No, _you_ weren't doing anything. You're a fucking cop, please don't tell me you've really got _that_ poor an understanding of what this is. I need you to say it. I need to _hear you say it_ or so help me I will tie you up in mandatory educational seminars for _years_ , I will _make your professional life hell_ — “

 

“Fuck you,” he says, flat, nearly surprising himself.“Fuck you, like I'd treat a _case_ like that— “

 

“Great, then enlighten me—why is your case different, exactly? What makes you so special?”

 

“It's not a case! It's not—it's not an _anything_ , Undyne, your mom just made me sit for the interview because— “

 

“Because,” she interrupts,her voice gentle and low and terrible, “he _raped_ you, Papyrus. The first night he met you, sounds like, and he kept on doing it for six months afterwards, while some creepy undernet randos, like...threw gold at him so they could jack off to it? Sound about right? Right up until 'til you _blacked out and stabbed him to death on a live feed?_ That ringing any bells there, buddy?”

 

After—though sans recalls it in excruciatingly clear detail, considering he'd been watching their exchange from the stair landing, the little creep— Papyrus doesn't actually remember hitting her.

 

Papyrus doesn't remember snatching her by a handful of hair and delicate fin, either, or slamming her down to the dirty floorboards. Has no recollection at all of wrapping a hand around her throat, or of clamping the other over her mouth to stop her screaming for help.He has no idea how long he just sat there, calm as anything, letting her tire herself out while she flailed and scratched and kicked at him like a wild cat, bare feet pounding useless into his shinbones where he'd twined them beneath her legs to quiet any sound she might make hammering her heels against the floorboards.

 

Later, once sans has pulled him off her and pinned him down with nothing but blue magic and blind terror, she'll swear up and down Papyrus was conscious the whole time. Later, she'll recall that his sockets were open, his eyelights fixed on her, his expression slack, bored, practically uninterested even as he steadily crushed the breath out of her.

 

Later, she'll shiver and she won't look directly at him for a few minutes and she'll say quietly, _dude trust me I know i deserved it, I was acting like a raging dick_ and _thank the stars for sans though, huh?_ and she'll laugh like there's anything amusing here at all. She’ll wince and she'll rub at her bruised throat a little, but more importantly she also won't answer him when he asks if she thinks he'd have stopped, had sans not intervened first. If she thinks he'd have snapped back to himself before he actually strangled her.

 

“absolutely the fuck not, you lunatic,” sans says without even looking up from his book when Papyrus asks him the same question the next evening. “you wanted to kill her, Pap, like—that was some straight-up baby psycho shit and when you get like that, dude? you're _real_ fuckin' good at getting what you want.”

 

That stark, brutal honesty is such a welcome wrench of something painful in his ribcage that Papyrus nearly breathes a sigh of relief before he catches himself.“Thanks,” he grumbles instead, dry.sans just shrugs and turns a page.

 

“Hey, don't ask me if you don't want a real answer,” he quips, poking the tip of his pierced tongue between his front teeth in what could loosely be considered a teasing smile. “You know the rules, bro.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhhh underage stuff, grooming, underfell is the worst universe for children and Papyrus is an expert at metaphorical self-flagellation which is only slightly related


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blaise is a good guy. For real, he is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yo so i’m sorry and this is so. late.

That first night—though he never tells Undyne as much, though it doesn't really _matter_ considering what happens after—Blaise doesn't even try to fuck him.  
  
What Blaise does instead—and it's only years later that Papyrus realizes how brilliant it was, what a neat and simple and comparatively cheap investment the older monster had made—is corner him behind the bar about three hours into his very first shift. He sequesters him, alone, while Papyrus is preoccupied with glaring down their ancient POS system. Frustratingly enough, the computer doesn't seem to agree with him that bone should qualify as touch-screen input.  
  
Blaise doesn't even address that one, actually, just hands him a pen with a little foam nub on the cap and says casually, like it's nothing at all, “Hey, so...Fuku mentioned you asked for an advance on your first paycheck?”  
  
“Yessir,” Papyrus says, stabbing at the screen with the nub-end of the pen. The thing boops back at him obligingly, and he grins for half a second before he lets it drop, picking his head up to fix his eyelights on Blaise. “Is that—she said it shouldn't be a problem. I know that's probably not a great thing to ask for on my first day but— “  
  
“No, no, hey, that's not it.” Blaise's brow wrinkles, and he folds his arms over his broad chest, shifting his weight to one foot almost like he's uncomfortable with the entire line of conversation. “She said you wouldn't tell her what it was for? And I gotta be real with you, Papyrus, if it's drugs you gotta do that on your own time like everyone else.”  
  
“It's not drugs,” Papyrus says quickly. He can actually _feel_ the embarrassing shade of crimson his cheekbones must be turning. He makes a stupid, hysterical little noise that hardly qualifies as a laugh. “Or—not illegal ones, anyways, I just. I just need to hire a healer. One that does house calls. As soon as possible. _Please_ ,” he even remembers to tack on, only half a beat late.  
  
Blaise cocks his head a few degrees to one side. His eyes crinkle at the corners, charming little white-hot creases of light that read easily as a smile, despite his occasional lack of a mouth. “Why couldn't you just tell her that, sweetheart? She'd have been happy to help.”  
  
“I— “ and here he pauses, blinking, to consider the question. “I don't know,” he offers, eyelights flicking down to rest on the scuffed toes of his boots. “I didn't really think about it.”  
  
“That is....super sad, wow,” Blaise says, but it's soft and it's kind and he takes half a step forward when Papyrus twists his face away, ashamed. “Oh, no, that's not—look, a lot of places don't mean it when they say they look out for their staff, you know? I've worked in a _ton_ of places like that. Enough to know that I don't want to run one.”  
  
He's got his phone in his hands now, tapping out a message without looking at the screen. “I'm just sorry that's been your experience up until now. I've got a buddy who's a healer, and he's got no problems at all doing me a couple favors.” He hands over the phone to Papyrus, eyes scrunching up again in a smile. “I'm gonna have you type your address in and then just delete it out of the text thread, all right? No reason for me to have it. And he'll get over there as soon as he can, to take care of your....?”  
  
“Brother,” Papyrus manages, barely. He stares down at the empty text box, probably looking for all the Underground like he's never seen a phone before. With claws he can't actually feel curled around the pen-stylus, he types out his address carefully and hits 'send.' “My brother is sick. Really sick.”  
  
“I'm sorry to hear that,” Blaise says, clapping one big, warm palm to Papyrus's shoulder. “Delete your address, please. Thank you,” he says, pocketing the phone once Papyrus has followed instructions and handed it back. “I'll keep you posted on how he's doing once I've got an update from my friend, okay? It's got to be torture, being here and smiling while you've got that on your mind, you poor thing.”  
  
“Thanks,” Papyrus says, dizzy. “I—I didn't even know how much to ask Fuku for. I wasn't sure what they charge.”  
  
And Blaise just—he just waves his hand like it's nothing at all, like it isn't the weight of the whole damn mountain off of Papyrus's aching shoulders and says, “Don't worry about it, honestly. I figure if you're reduced to working in a place like this, smart as you are, you probably don't have the spare gold for it, huh? And I meant what I said—we take care of our own, here. We're a family.”  
  
Later, when that particular irony finally clicks in Papyrus's slow, stubborn brain, he'll laugh himself sick.  
  
He'll laugh until he dry-heaves into the kitchen sink, and he'll spit bile tinged with blood and he'll crumble to the dirty carpet and sink his claws into the closest available exposed bone and hold on until his fingers run red with his own marrow, until his claws bite in sharp enough that his body stops trying to shake itself all to pieces. He won't be able to help himself, really.  
  
Objectively speaking, the entire situation is  _hilarious._  
  


* * *

Despite Undyne's accusations, Papyrus actually makes it to day three of employment before he follows Blaise upstairs at the end of his shift. When it happens, his vision is blurring only a little bit with the shots the elder monster had offered him during the bar's closing tasks.  
  
((It's the same day sans had finally emerged from the disaster nest he'd made of their couch, too.  
  
Papyrus had found him just that morning standing on his own two feet, mostly steady, cooking a very passable omelette. sans had even smiled at him, almost sunnily, and asked how his week had been, _dude, sorry about being so MIA, seriously._  
  
He'd sounded so normal. So _fine._  
  
He hadn't asked any questions, and Papyrus had volunteered nothing.))  
  
The connection is obvious and the connection is _painful_ and Papyrus does his best not to think about it. Does his best not to examine his own motivations when he cants one hip against the bar top and murmurs in his boss's ear that he really honestly would like to thank Blaise properly for his help.  
  
  
  


* * *

  
Papyrus keeps it together pretty well, he thinks, right up until Blaise wrestles his jeans down around his ankles.  
  
That's...yeah, upon later reflection, that's sort of the point when everything completely goes to shit.  
  
At first he manages, mostly, to bite down on the barbed-wire nerves twisting him all up from the inside. He manages to narrow his whole entire world down to those massive hands on his hips and the solid bulk of the body pressed against his, the sheer bonfire _heat_ the elder monster exudes, worlds divorced from trembling, tacky bone and his father's cold hands...only then Blaise stops dead.  
  
Blaise just freezes, staring at his leg, _staring at his burn_ and his brow wrinkles up, pained. He whispers, low and rumbling and secret like a big stupid cat's big stupid purr, all sweet and sad and completely ruining the _whole entire fucking thing,_ “Oh—oh, _Papyrus,_ honey _...”_  
  
Papyrus has never heard his name said like that in his entire life, and he's sure as _shit_ never been called 'honey' before.  
  
He doesn't know why, exactly, but he immediately loathes it. He sneers in knee-jerk response and wishes he could spit out the taste of it, bitter as stomach acid on his conjured tongue. Absurdly, running half on instinct he didn't even know he had, his legs clamp together—like that'll do anything at all to protect him from this new wrenching vulnerability.  
  
It at least does him the questionable service of broadcasting loud and clear that Blaise needs to step the fuck away from him, like, _now_ , which is actually a relief considering he doesn't think he could speak if he tried. Doesn't think there's a single sound that can force its way past whatever's crawled into the back of his throat to die.  
  
Instead, one hand clamped desperate over his injured leg, the other frantically trying to tug his jeans back into place, he just curls up small as he can manage. He burrows almost gratefully back into the abundance of pillows adorning the elemental's bed. He prays that if anything aboveground or in the heavens might be listening to him at all, it'll do him the courtesy of striking him dead on the spot.  
  
“Papyrus,” Blaise tries again, so soft, so goddamn gentle that Papyrus wants to _scream_. He even reaches one hand out, flames flickering hesitantly along his forearm as he closes warm fingers over Papyrus's, slow enough that he has plenty of time to pull away, if he wants to. Doesn't grab on, really, just guides Papyrus's shaking hand and helps him pull the stubborn pants up over his still-flushed hipbones—because apparently even cringing and small and actually, literally sick with humiliation, Papyrus's body is hell-bent on making all sorts of interesting decisions without bothering to consult him first.  
  
He hisses, startled, as the seam of his jeans jerks tight against the slick folds of his magic. Blaise chuckles deep down in that barrel chest, crackling and fond. “Still?” he murmurs, curling his body over Papyrus's as he buttons the jeans up one-handed, grinding the heel of his other palm against the hot ridge of Papyrus's pubic arc. There's a welcome burr of interest in his voice now, a jagged, flickering smile creeping across his face to match. “You're a strange kid, Papyrus.”  
  
...so okay, cool. Maybe Papyrus hasn't _completely_ fucked his chances up here.  
  
“I-I'm sorry,” he stammers, eyelights dropping to the glowing slant of Blaise's collarbone in the half-unbuttoned v of his shirt collar. The flames ripple in welcome response, a swell of bright green arousal amidst the familiar emerald he normally shares with his daughter.  
  
Hot tears pinprick at the corners of Papyrus's sockets at the abrupt reminder of Fuku, a rock wedging itself into his soft palate making it impossible to swallow, impossible to elaborate, impossible to _speak_.  
  
((— if he opens his mouth now he's gonna make a sound he can't take back, something pathetic and gutted and wrenching, something animal, something that'll tear its way right out of him teeth-first and rip him to humiliated shreds in the process— ))  
  
He can't cry.  
  
He completely, entirely flat-out _refuses_ to cry, at least not here. Not in his boss's bed for god's sake, not while he's trying so, so desperately to appear more mature than his fourteen years. Not while there is absolutely no _reason_ to, when nothing is wrong, when he had made a _clear and conscious choice to be here—_  
  
He's an adult. He's been an adult for _ages_ now, ever since the basement, ever since—  
  
—except no, nope, that's not actually a place he wants to go right now at _all._ Not when he's got the hottest thing he's ever seen— _no pun intended,_ he scolds the internal chuckle that sounds far too much like his brother—practically on top of him, hard and heavy and goddamn _willing,_ which is kind of a fun novelty, so.  
  
He screws his sockets shut, determined, and tips his skull forward to press into that collarbone instead. He closes his eyes and opens his mouth, grazes filed teeth against the thick muscle beneath and _bites_ into the meat of Blaise's pectoral, just enough to make the elemental suck in a startled little breath.  
  
Just enough to distract him from what Papyrus is _sure_ must be a wretched, frightened look on his own face. He can feel it, he can feel the tears still welling hot and hateful in his sockets—although he doesn't actually clock that he's shaking until Blaise's giant dumb hands curl around his shoulders holding him firmly, if gently, in place.  
  
Papyrus whines, wordless. He ducks his head down, hiding it in the grimy sleeve of his tank top best he can. He tries very hard not to think about where he's seen that particular move before. He squirms in Blaise's grip, and wishes, not for the first time, that he'd thought to ask the elemental to turn the lights off, at the very least.  
  
“Sweetheart, hey, _stop_ ,” Blaise rumbles. His hold tightens for a fraction of a second, just long enough that Papyrus knows he means it.  
  
Just enough that he—well, he _whimpers,_ embarrassingly enough and then he goes still, shuts his sockets again, slumps like a fucking rag doll, like he'd just been waiting for permission. For an order.  
  
The panicky and wild thing that lives inside him, the thing threatening to crack his rib cage from the inside out with its thrashing now pauses, actually _preens_ at the command. The creature dares to ease and settle itself at the idea of handing off its proverbial reins to someone who seems like he _might_ possibly have weathered worse than the nightmare things in Papyrus's head.  
  
Blaise slides a warm knuckle under the angle of Papyrus's jawbone, tipping his skull up so he has no choice but to meet burning, pupilless eyes. “Easy, easy. You're fine. Just breathe for me. That's it, that's—that's good, Papyrus. That's so good. You still in there?”  
  
Blaise's kind don't exactly have the most emotive faces in the whole of the Underground, but years of learning to read sans's microexpressions help him out a little bit here. His boss's brow is wrinkled, concerned, the flames along the ridge of his skull popping and flickering with uncertainty. There's a tension to the set of his shoulders that Papyrus has only seen when he notices patrons get particularly rowdy with his dancers, steeling himself for the eventuality of getting to play bouncer for the more problematic ones.  
  
Blaise is....worried. About _Papyrus_.  
  
Huh.  
  
“Papyrus,” Blaise prompts again and Papyrus has to stop himself actually shaking his head like a dog to clear the cobwebs from those strange, spidery thoughts. “You're kinda freaking me out here, kiddo. What's up?”  
  
That's a loaded question that Papyrus doesn't know how to answer, like, at all. He immediately starts hyperventilating again—weird, when had he stopped? when had he even started the first time? _how the fuck hadn't he noticed?_ — which makes Blaise's eyes go wide with alarm.  
  
“Shhh, shhhh, no, don't—oh no, don't cry, sweetheart, you don't have to answer if you don't want to! Everything's okay, you're fine, I promise you're fine. I'm not mad, no one's mad at you, you just—you gotta breathe for me, in, out—there you go, good boy— “  
  
And that just sets him off again, of course, which Papyrus is pretty sure is literally the worst thing that could _possibly_ happen here. He'll spend months afterwards, in fact, trying to forget the exact way he chokes on a wet, shuddering breath and curls into his boss's broad chest and just—he loses it.  
  
He cracks.  
  
He breaks down and he _weeps_ , he cries like a fucking child, all because Blaise had the audacity to say something nice to him, and Papyrus cannot.  
  
handle.  
  
it.  
  
_A system under constant pressure,_ something echoes fractured and insistent and exhausted in the back of his skull. He ignores it. Tries to force breath past the lump in his nonexistent throat, the shuddering way air doesn't seem to want to cooperate with his kind-of lungs anymore. Tries to shove his face entirely into the shoulder of Blaise's white dress shirt, wholly, awfully aware that the blood-stains of his tears are gonna give him away the _second_ the elemental sees them.  
  
He wants to be literally anywhere else. He wants to be dead. He wants to go home. He wants to never have to look Blaise directly in the face again, at the very least, because he's seen the ugly, gross, quivering _truth_ of Papyrus now, seen him sobbing and hysterical and weak and there is no way Papyrus can ever atone for that particular horrorshow, much less show up for another shift like nothing had happened.  
  
Undyne herself has never even witnessed a breakdown quite this spectacular, and she's been around for some of the absolute worst. This is the kind of frantic, self-indulgent thing he saves for the strange lonely hours of the early mornings when the whole Underground is asleep still and it's just him and the stillness and there's no one around to hear. No witnesses.  
  
Professionally speaking, there really isn't any coming back from this.  
  
“I'll still—I can still f-fuck you,” he stammers, wincing at the less-than-delicate phrasing that stumbles out. He tries to rescue it by reaching for the waistband of his jeans again, fumbling at the buttons and if his face wasn't already wet with tears, he's pretty sure he might start crying out of sheer frustration as his claws scrabble clumsy at the metal. “Or you can fuck me, I don't—I'm fine, is the point, I just—I have this, like, this breathing thing—”  
  
“You sure do,” Blaise agrees mildly. “A thing where you can't do it right now, because you're panicking. Please keep your jeans on, Papyrus.”  
  
His fingers freeze with his zipper tugged halfway down—when had he managed the buttons? he didn't even notice—immediately obeying before his rational brain totally clocks that he's heard the order which...might be worth examining later. “Sir?”  
  
Something in Blaise's face creases at the title, pained. “... _yikes_. Could we skip that one when we're up here, maybe? Just 'Blaise' is fine.”  
  
“Blaise,” Papyrus allows, and has no idea what he's supposed to follow it with. “Blaise, look, I— “  
  
“I'm not gonna...baby, hey, I'm not gonna sleep with you while you're _crying_ ,” Blaise interrupts him gently, and it's enough to knock loose whatever Papyrus had been about to argue. It's enough to snap his jaw shut, enough to strike something gunpowder-sharp and startling off in his brain, as though his employer had maybe backhanded him instead.  
  
(He doesn't miss the softer terminology either—though in his experience, sex and a decent night's sleep are concepts so divorced that the euphemism _almost_ rankles.)  
  
Blaise sighs. He's fiddling absently with the heavy ring on his thumb, twisting it around and around and around, clearly agitated by the entire line of conversation. “What kind of monster do you think I am, Papyrus? Seriously?”  
  
He sounds...hurt.  
  
He sounds hurt and he looks worse, those big shoulders slumped into an arc of wounded defeat, eyes fixed to a point three feet to Papyrus's left and it—  
  
Oh.  
  
Oh, _no_.  
  
—it just rams right the fuck into Papyrus then, slams into his chest like he's been run straight through with it. It hits him _hard_ , wrenching a strangled little sound out between his teeth that completely belies the cold horror prickling all over his bones, the panicky sweat breaking out along his brow ridge as he realizes—  
  
**_((—finally, it took you long enough, how stupid can you be, honestly, you can't have really thought that was the way the whole world worked, can't have really thought monsterkind wouldn't have turned on itself and eaten itself alive if everyone was raised the way you were, you fucking freak— ))_**  
  
  
_**((—you can't have genuinely thought it happened to everyone, you can't have thought this was a terrible secret you shared, oh no, honey, it's just you, it's only ever been you, it's something sick and diseased and inherent in you, Gaster could smell it on you— ))**_  
  
—he's just really been reading this entirely wrong, hasn't he? This whole time, he's been playing with a hand that doesn't even belong in this goddamn deck.  
  
He's been assuming he knows what Blaise wants from him, like, _at all_ but Blaise has seen his burn and Blaise is appropriately freaked the fuck out by it...and probably, by extension, a little bit freaked out by Papyrus himself.  
  
Blaise doesn't like the thought of Papyrus being hurt.  
  
That _upsets_ him.  
  
That...makes no sense.  
  
Papyrus doesn't know what to do here. He doesn't have the rule book for this particular game. He doesn't have a strategy. He's completely, utterly, humiliatingly lost. Nothing Gaster has taught him has remotely prepared him for this moment.  
  
“My dad didn't care,” is all he manages to croak out though, dimly, because if Papyrus has a single consistent skill, it's saying the absolute worst thing possible in any given situation and yeah, hey, _there_ it is. That's it.  
  
There's not a single four-word sentence he could produce that would hang heavy in the air _precisely_ the way that cheery little revelation does.  
  
Years later, a decade and a half later, try as he might he still won't be able to forget the way Blaise's face twists in horror, in pity, into something soft and wounded and _terrible._  
  
He looks wrecked. He looks shattered. He looks sick, like he's survived all these years in their shared hellhole, scratching out a living for himself on the wrong side of the proverbial tracks with blood and sweat and sheer stubborn will to survive—and still, he's never seen something quite as upsetting as Papyrus.  
  
It's a fair assessment, maybe.  
  
Papyrus can't entirely find it in himself to disagree.  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> underage grooming shit grillby’s dad is a Creep

**Author's Note:**

> uh, grillby's dad sucks, because I'm not sure what else you'd honestly expect from me at this point? manipulation, gaslighting, gross weird predatory tactics, grooming, power trips, employee-employer shenanigans, some light tax evasion, and Gaster technically being a deadbeat dad, despite living under the same roof.
> 
> also featuring all the usual hits like noncon, some serious age/consent/stockholmy issues with a side of pap attempting to pavlov himself into digging his abuse, bad times playing with cigarettes feat. baby edgelord's One (1) Coping Mechanism™️
> 
> basically paps gets bad-touched at work and thinks he liked it because someone was finally nice to him RIP everything once good in the world i'm sorry i'm so very sorry


End file.
